Flowers, birds, croft houses,landscapes: Fair Isle July 26 to August 7, 2015

These wire sculptures of birds are here and there as you wander Fair Isle.  So fun to come across.

Fair Isle Bird Observatory (FIBO) from the ferry dock.  My room is the window on the end facing the dock.

Our ferry. We are waiting for our luggage.  Crossing was calm, 2.5 hours from Sumburgh.

Wed, July 29

FIBO with North Harbor in background

Bird trap.  Birds are caught, recorded, banded and released to track migration patterns.

Another trap.  These are the only trees I have seen here.

The remains of a water mill used during the 18-19 C.  The grinding wheels are on the ground.  Several streams and reservoirs contribute to the mill stream.

This and the previous photo show the modern wall and the remains of the prehistoric wall which divides the common grazing to the N. and the crofts to the south.  Early wall dates to the neolithic times.

Tiny flowers.  This about .5". Sheep scabious, perennial.  It is in heather fields but is not heather.

Sheep craig.  The men used to pull the sheep up here on chains for summer grazing.

July 30, walking from south light house to observatory.  About 2 miles if direct but of course we wandered.  Many great birds.  See checklist on eBird if you are following the birdy part of this adventure.

First--photos of flowers. I learned all the names but that was hours ago and I have a 2 hour memory.

Ragged Robin

Red grass is sorrel, not sure what the white topped grass is.  The fields look gorgeous with waves of red and white.

Scottish thistle

More flowers from July 31. I just love them.

Scabious again

Orchid

Thyme

Now pictures of the village.  It is a dispersed settlement pattern rather than a compact village. I kind of forgot to take pictures so maybe I will do better tomorrow.

July 31.  Short day because we banded birds deep into the night.  So, a ride to the museum and a walk to the store, then a ride back home.  Easy day.

Village store with flower field.

Croft. Owner makes spinning wheels and also spins local wool.

Back-kirk. Front-Auld Schule, now museum.

Aug 5--Birding at South light house.  Great shore birds.  And even better, I was abe to find and identify them on my own.  I am geting better! Yay!

Thursday, August 6
I expected to be on the ferry at 7 AM today.

But I am forced, FORCED, to stay here and have another peaceful day.  Rudely early departure tomorrow am but the word is that it is actually likely to go.


August 8

We did go at 6:30 AM.  Kind of rough but I was not sick, tho others were.  Gannets helping us along.  Really beautiful views of fair Isle dropping off in the south and Sumbergh Head rising up in the north.  I am sorry to leave.

Below photos are all of Sumburgh Head, the southern tip of Shetland "mainland."

Arrived safely.  Off for a few days in Shetland before return to mainland Scotland.

Good and bad--all by Julianne

Banding storm petrels: a night at Fair Isle Bird Observatory

Glorious full moon--good for us but almost too bright for the task.  This is the night for banding petrels caught in a mist net just near the north harbor on Fair Isle.

Petrels fly around near land only at night so capturing and banding must be done during the dark. At this time of year, adults are still feeding nestlings and do not stray far from the colony. So the birds out and about are the youth, cruising around looking for a new colony to join as they become breeding adults themselves.  Thus, our recordings of petrel calls draw them to shore and up into our nets.

The nets are soft string and they slide into a little pocket where one of the scientists gently grasps them and puts them in a little bag.  When several little bags of birds are collected, they are taken into the hut for banding, weighing, wing measuring.

Then my job comes in--me and the other newbies who do not know how to to the other jobs.  We get to hold the tiny little things in the palm of our hands while their eyes adjust and they are ready to fly.
They are tiny--about 4" from beak to tail.  They weigh so little that you cannot even feel them.  Their tiny webbed feet are littler than my smallest fingernail.  Sometimes they feel around with their beaks or feet until they are ready to fly.

Be still my heart.

With persistence, you can just barely make them out while they are flying.  Generally, you can hear their calls low down near the water.  But without capturing them, it is unlikely we would see them at all.

Both kind of petrels here spend all their time far out at sea, feeding on plankton along the water surface.  They have a fluttery flight and skim the water, patting at the surface with their feet.  When they pat, plankton stirs up and that's dinner for them.  Other than breeding and searching for mates, they have no need to visit shore.  I am going to be vigilant on the return ferry in case I see any but it seems they are hard to find.

We banded 66 birds last night: 65 common Storm-petrels and 1 Leach's Storm-Petrel.  Of those we caught, 15 had been banded before, maybe here or maybe farther away.  It is possible they would have been banded as far away as Norway or Denmark.  The info goes to a data-base run by the British Trust for Ornithology.  We will find out from them where the birds are from.  Anyone who finds one of our birds will find out too and we get a report.  Birds from Fair Isle have been found as far away as Portugal.  It takes awhile to find out--maybe I will already be gone.

About 2:30 AM, the sky was light and by 3 AM the sun was up.  No more birds and time to go home ourselves.



 


Bird banding photos:

Good view of the white wing patch and tail patch

Common on left, larger Leach's on right.

Tiny webbed foot

Bill with tube nose which excretes the salt from the water
enabling them to drink salt water

The correct gentle way to hold the bird

Sunday at the kirk and marsh

 

Fair Isle has two churches but here they are kirks.  However, they have few people and no minister so they use one kirk one week and one the other.  Today, the visiting minister was unable to get here so local people planned and managed the service.  Since I have been walking around a fair amount, I actually know some of them already.  The observatory gives rides to folks so along I went.  Among other beauties of this Island, the windows of this kirk are pictures in glass of the life of the island.

The message today was about refugees. I am so glad to have come.

As Britain is struggling with the migrant crisis of thousands of irregular migrants camping at Calais trying to reach UK, the rest of Europe is also facing the floods of refugees trying to cross the Mediterranean or reach Europe overland via Greece, Turkey or Bulgaria. In Italy, Ireland and now Scotland, I have been reading about the response of the EU as well as of each country.

Italy has continued to rescue ships and boats despite being overwhelmed with migrants.  Ireland sent one of their military ships to assist with rescues and daily reports reached the news of who they found.  UK and France are squabbling about who must care for the folks at Calais and the political parties are trying to sound tough about keeping migrants out.

Today in church, speaker after speaker shared the message that there is bread enough in the world for everyone.  It should be our response as Christians to figure out how to help.  Surely we can find a way.

There is a marsh next to the church where I have been seeing various shorebirds every time I am around.  Today, no shorebirds but one mallard and three wheatears.



Before kirk, on this glorious sunny day, we did trap rounds.  Although autumn migration has begun, we only had two birds this morning: 1 rock pipit, one wheat ear.  But we had a glorious walk in the sun.

Rock pipit

Today, it does seem as though there is enough for everyone.

Gannet afternoon, Fair Isle, Scotland

Gannets are possibly my favorite bird.  They have such contrast between their black wing tips and white bodies.  Then when you see them up close, a lovely pale yellow head and beautiful designs on their faces.



20,000 gannets nest here in Fair Isle and have not yet left for the south.  My goal today was to walk to the top of Vaasetter point which is the high point overlooking Sheep Craig.  An island except at very low tide, it has sheer cliffs on all sides and a flat grassy top. This is the place that the crofters hauled their sheep up by chains for summer feeding.

On the south side of Sheep Craig thousands of gannets nest.  To me, heaven.  High hill but a comfy place to sit and look down at the gannets and other seabirds, fishing, nesting, soaring around. Also a pretty easy walk along the road then across grassy fields to reach my eyrie.  As you see in the photos, a sunny day.

As I watched, many gannets were out fishing and still bringing food for babies.  I saw quite many fluffy chicks who are clearly not ready to fly.  Some birds born this year are full size and flying but are totally black.  Gannets are not mature until age 5 so there were other color variations in the mix too: overall speckled up to white with "piano-key" wings.

When they fish, they hover briefly about 60-70 feet above the water, then close their wings and dive straight down into the sea. Stunning.  They chase fish underwater and pop up anywhere--hard to follow a particular gannet.

The other seabirds on the cliffs: puffins, maybe 2,000; fulmars, also thousands; skuas, a few.  The razorbills and guillemots have already migrated south.

On my way home, though, I had to cross a field which the skuas seem to think of as their own.  Their babies are big enough to fly but the parents are still protective and wanted me out of there.



They made their point by flying at me but never actually hit me.  You are supposed to put your hand up above your head as you walk so they will aim for that instead.  So, me, flapping my earband above my head, marching across heather.  When I reached the road, one of my friends was there laughing and we had good chats about skuas.  Easy to laugh from afar.

The photos above are copied from the internet but are what I see in my binoculars.  I just have a phone, after all, for photos.  Below are several photos of Sheep Craig with the gannet nest site (white area).  Puffins are on top and all around in the water.  You will just have to come see for yourself.

These are photos of Sheep Craig with the gannet area showing.  I liked them all so included them all.

From Vaasetter Hill, looking at Fair Isle Bird Observatory and North Harbor, across skua gully.